I wanted to share with you today about how you will look at your business differently using the 3 Vital Questions and TED* frameworks. The 3 Vital Questions is the work that I deliver here in Australia as a facilitator. It’s about transforming workplace drama and about transforming how you operate in all relationships in life. It is the work of David Emerald. He is the founder and author of the 3 Vital Questions and the Power of TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic) at the Center for the Empowerment Dynamic in USA.
When I came across it, it was later than when I owned the business that I really, really could have used this work in. The 3 Vital Questions address the human element of our businesses. Understanding the how behind everything. I remember when I first saw David, he spoke on a video and he said, basically, the cost of drama in any business is astronomical.
There’s, plenty to read easily on the web backing that premise. Gallup has estimated in the billions every year and, that 20 to 40% of any manager’s time is spent addressing drama in the workplace. If you sat to work out the soft cost (the people) and the hard costs (lost productivity) caused by drama, it is astronomical! I know if I went back and looked at the amount of time I spent doing it probably not as effectively as I could have now, gosh, it took up so much of our time and our focus and our energy. This work is about making the shift towards a more empowering mindset for you and your team. I can imagine that some managers or business owners may even come to this training, a bit worried that they’re going to be, looking as if they are causing the drama.
I get that too. I remember once a strategy consultant I had on contract, gave me Lencioni’s book “the five dysfunctions of the team”. It was late at the end of a long day, I was quite tired and I really felt like crying. My mind spun feeling victimised, ‘you’re telling me that I’ve caused this’. He was only giving me something to open my mind to growing the company’s base stronger for the next level we were heading towards. So, yes, we do need to cop it on the chin a little bit as a business owner, but so long as you take the lessons and move forward, I think that’s the key.
What the difference is about the 3 Vital Questions is they address the C Dimension of business, which is not something that I would have known about. You may do know about it already. Usually when there’s an issue in a business, people seem to focus on the A Dimension. You look at your production, your delivery of your products and your services and see what you can make a change with there.
Alternatively, you’ll look at the B Dimension. The B Dimension includes the design and implementation of systems and your processes and your structures. Often you end up getting people in to come and actually sort that stuff out! I’ve seen so many people bring in consultants and then the next consultants, and then the next consultants. I think ‘hmmm, you’re actually not focusing on where you really need to be focused, are you. Maybe you’re scared of the people thing, maybe not. The 3 Vital Questions creates a new common language and breaks down all the layers of drama, the blame, the gossip, the wasted time and money.
The C Dimension is this critical part. I’m seeing so much change in people opening up their thinking and their team’s thinking. The C Dimension is thinking about how we think, how we interact and howwe take action.
In the course we would cover that. For interest sake, the model that David has used is based on building a learning organisation by Peter Sanjay, in the Journey For Quality and Participation back in March, 1992.
David has developed his 3 Vital Questions to work around that model of A, B and C Dimension. As he says, it’s the soft stuff. It’s the people’s stuff. It’s the reality that we employ employees and people turn up in their space, I’ve heard him say often. That’s the one thing I think I wasn’t ready for when I first started a business. I just needed a job done. I needed a position description field. I needed tasks done, and I wasn’t prepared for how to actually communicate effectively with people.
This is what this is all about, and I’ve seen examples of it working. I’ve seen CEOs of multimillion dollar companies who’ve said I just don’t know how to do the people stuff. It’s making me lose sleep. I can make millions, but I cannot do the people’s stuff.
That’s what this is about and it’s very exciting work that has a positive impact immediately. It’s hard to not unsee the changes you can make. It’s exciting for teams to embrace together. It’s a really easy framework to understand and it’s very visual. There are loads of examples of, say, just how to open a sentence differently, changing the perception of you being a persecutor, to instead come from a more empowered challenger role. Or it’s about stop seeming to be a rescuer, and come across as the coach, in the leader, that you are.
So whether you’re thinking your business doesn’t need it, or you don’t need it, I’d be interested to have a chat with you to see whether your people just might feel it’s a breath of fresh air. If you do think this would make a positive change within your business, the beneficial impact you have on your personal relationships, on your staff’s personal relationships, on the relationships you’re having with your clients, with all those people, is a ripple effect that goes on.